


Not Good at Making Promises

by eyesofshinigami



Series: The Birthday Collective [10]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, But Jaskier thinks it is, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Mentions of Jaskier/Female OC, Not Actually Unrequited Love, WHUMP THE BARD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27996009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesofshinigami/pseuds/eyesofshinigami
Summary: Many of his lovers have thought they’d be the one to tame him, to tie him down with a shackle on his left ring finger, but they were wrong. Jaskier lives for the now when it comes to love and matters of the heart. It doesn’t matter if they’re the son of a blacksmith in a backwater hamlet, or a courtesan batting her eyes at him from behind a lace fan, or a scorned troubadour who now holds a grudge against him from his court position in Cidaris. They’re all the same, flights of fancy that Jaskier will look back and remember fondly for the briefest of moments. They make for good songs, good memories, and not much else.Until Jaskier arrives in Lower Posada.Or the one where Jaskier plays at love for so long and can't seem to hold onto the one person he really wants to stay
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Birthday Collective [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910632
Comments: 16
Kudos: 104





	Not Good at Making Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [handwrittenhello](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handwrittenhello/gifts).



> This is a birthday gift for my favorite WHUMP THE BARD advocate, handwrittenhello! You're an amazing friend and an amazing beta, and I absolutely adore you to pieces. I hope this is right up your alley.
> 
> Special thanks to InkAtHeart and Lutes_and_dandelions for cheerleading and beta-ing for me. 
> 
> Title is taken from "Perfect" by One Direction, which inspired the idea in the first place.

As much as whims and fancy are a stereotype of his profession, Jaskier has spent most of his life embracing it as a way of life. He knows he’s flighty, prone to fall in love with someone or something one day, only to move on to the next shiny thing that catches his eye. He flits through life and lovers without a care, never stopping to think about what sort of wreckage he might be leaving behind. He’s always the one who got away, the one who couldn’t be tied down. 

His entire life is filled with stories of slipping out of body-warm sheets and slipping down drain pipes, to hiding under skirts so as not to be caught by angry cuckholds. Dalliances in back alleys with men under a sliver of moonlight are his specialty, a secret whispered behind hands at galas. He knows this and is glad for it. It makes it so much easier to live the life of freedom that he wants, being someone else’s fancy for a brief moment in time before he’s off onto the next thing. 

Many of his lovers have thought they’d be the one to tame him, to tie him down with a shackle on his left ring finger, but they were wrong. Jaskier lives for the now when it comes to love and matters of the heart. It doesn’t matter if they’re the son of a blacksmith in a backwater hamlet, or a courtesan batting her eyes at him from behind a lace fan, or a scorned troubadour who now holds a grudge against him from his court position in Cidaris. They’re all the same, flights of fancy that Jaskier will look back and remember fondly for the briefest of moments. They make for good songs, good memories, and not much else.

Until Jaskier arrives in Lower Posada.

\--

It happens in fits and starts. Jaskier can’t pinpoint the singular moment where everything shifted, where for once in his life he’s decided he _wants_ , for more than just a roll in the hay. Over the years of following Geralt on his adventures around the Continent, the need for freedom is sated by his travels with the Witcher and Jaskier finds himself hopping in and out of beds less and less. 

It starts with more nights camped by a fire, sharing roasted meat and gathered berries. It continues with shared baths and Geralt’s gruff acceptance of Jaskier’s fingers combing through his hair. It blossoms when the lyrics of Jaskier’s songs shift from tales of Geralt’s daring feats of Witcherdom to admirations about the man himself, his character and his appearance. It solidifies when Jaskier witnesses Geralt save a princess and refuse to take what’s rightfully his from a family that will love and cherish her. 

He realizes it, finally, on a fateful day in Rinde, when he happens to look into a window and he sees, feeling his heart shatter into a million pieces at his feet. The feeling is so unfamiliar that it hits him like a hammer to the ribs, steals his breath even worse than the djinn had. Why should it bother him, watching Yennefer and Geralt together? It’s not like he and Geralt are together, aren’t even friends as far as the witcher is concerned, so why--

 _Oh._

Jaskier sinks to his knees and he feels like he might be sick. His gut churns and he feels a bit faint, like he stood up too fast and the world is tipping on its axis. Is this what it feels like, to have your heart broken and cracked in two? He barely hears Chireadan asking after him over the rush of blood in his ears, or the strange cottony feeling that’s settled in his head. He waves the elf off, stammering out something about Geralt and Yennefer being alive and well, if their noises are any indication. He’d been so concerned about finding Geralt dead under all the rubble and ruin that he never expected _that._

It feels like hours until Geralt finds him, still sitting there like he forgot how to make his body work. He glances up and the witcher motions for him to follow, not her. She’s still somewhere in the ruins, but Jaskier can’t make himself care. They’re moving on and it’ll be just the two of them again, off and their adventures together and everything will be fine, he’s sure of it.

\--

Everything is not fine. 

Jaskier briefly wonders if this is penitence for every single heart he’s ever broken, for all of the callousness he’s shown those who just wanted to love him like he loves Geralt, every single time he watches Geralt walk away. He comes back, smelling of lilacs and gooseberries and sex, so strong even Jaskier’s pathetic human nose can smell it on his clothes and his skin. Every single time it happens, he feels another piece chip away and fall at his feet. He feels it in the hollow thump behind his ribs when Geralt comes back smiling, looking far more relaxed than Jaskier has ever seen him.

Once, Jaskier heard a fairy tale of a man cursed, watching the petals fall from an enchanted flower as he lost more and more of himself due to his selfishness. As a child, he thought it silly, but now he can’t help but feel like there’s his own rose, buried deep in his chest and wilting every single time Geralt seeks out the sorceress. What will become of him, if this curse becomes too much? 

He supposes he could say something, but every single time he tries, the words shrivel and blacken on his tongue. Geralt is happy, why should Jaskier ruin it? He’s ruined marriages and engagements, wasn’t that enough? 

He tries to keep it to himself, lock it up tight inside his heart and behind his teeth, but his witcher knows him too well for that. “What’s wrong, bard? I’ve seen at least three maids and the barkeep all give you the eye, and you’ve barely noticed them,” Geralt says one night, tipping his tankard in the direction of a pretty blonde who keeps smiling at Jaskier. 

The stew Jaskier’s eating turns to ash in his mouth and he fights to swallow it down. “Can’t a man be tired? Some of us walked nearly fifteen miles today at a brisk pace carrying a lute and pack, after all,” he replies lamely. Though, the more he thinks about it, the more appealing the idea sounds. Maybe a night with a body that isn’t Geralt’s in his bed would do him some good, be a balm to dull the edges of his broken heart, if only for a little while. A vindictive thrill shoots through him at the idea of being the one coming back stinking of sex and someone else, and he chooses to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach that follows right after. “But you know, my friend, perhaps a good tumble wouldn’t be remiss.”

Geralt’s face does something complicated that Jaskier can’t read, but finally he takes another gulp from his tankard. “Do what you want. I’m still using the room, though.” 

Jaskier rolls his eyes and pushes his half-empty bowl of stew towards Geralt. He has no intention of eating it anyway. “Fine, though I think I’ll leave my things with you as insurance you won’t leave without me in the morning. Sometimes you’re flighty like that.” He has to swallow down a hysterical laugh at that, but he manages. 

“I won’t leave you, Jaskier.” 

_But you do, Geralt. You leave me behind every time a pair of violet eyes makes an appearance,_ Jaskier thinks to himself, but he tucks that thought away with all the rest of them, somewhere in the dark corners of his mind that he tries not to think about. Instead, he pretends to tip his hat and sidles up to the blonde that had been smiling at him from across the way. 

A few pretty words and a couple of glasses of wine later and Jaskier finds himself pressed to a mattress as his lover of the evening smears red marks into his neck from her lipstick. He slips his hand beneath her skirts and drinks down the pretty moans she lets out, and he does his best to ignore how _wrong_ they sound. They should be deeper, shouldn’t they? If he closes his eyes, he hears a gruff voice instead of a sweet one, imagines the body that’s astride him is heavier, more solid. 

“Fuck,” he says, flipping them over and crawling between her legs. It’s easier to stay here in the moment when his face is buried in her cunt, can’t pretend it’s anything else while his tongue and fingers are occupied. 

He fucks her as sweetly as he can manage, thrusting into her over and over again as she claws at his back and whimpers out his name. It should feel good, outside of the obvious physical sensation of his cock being hard, his body spiraling towards orgasm as he thrusts inside of her. 

But it doesn’t.

Jaskier feels outside of himself, like he’s watching what’s going on through someone else’s eyes. He can feel it, he knows he can, but he also doesn’t. It just feels wrong, wrong, _wrong_ to be here with her, to be taking his pleasure in someone else. He feels hot tears start to sting his eyes and he plunges in harder, fucks her faster to try and lose himself in the feeling. It almost works for a split second when he comes, but then his mind twists and the feeling morphs into something darker, something colder. 

He shouldn’t be here. This isn’t what he wants. This was a mistake.

Above all else, though, Jaskier is a performer. He says the right words and plays the right part to make her coo and laugh and let him go without too much fuss. He gets dressed and leaves her, slinking out of the cottage and down the street like a dog with its tail between its legs. Months ago he might have peacocked about, carousing as he kicked up his heels and remembered his bedmate fondly for the moment. But not this time. This time, he makes his way back to the inn and he feels like he’s committed a betrayal, that everyone who sees him will know that he played traitor to the desires inside his own heart. 

When he opens the door to the shared room, he’s surprised to see Geralt still awake, sitting by the fire and mending what looks like his favorite _(only)_ black chemise. Jaskier is enraptured by the deft movements of his fingers and loses himself in the motions of Geralt’s hand, until the witcher mutters, “Are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to come in?” 

Jaskier shakes it off and steps inside, closing the door behind him. Exhaustion hits him like a punch to the gut and he almost sags on his feet, lumbering towards one of the two beds in the room. Of course there’s two beds. Why would there be anything else? A hysterical laugh threatens to bubble up from the dark pit in his stomach, but he keeps it clenched tight behind his teeth. Wordlessly, he strips and climbs into the bed, prepared to fall into what he hopes is a dreamless sleep. 

“Had a good time?” 

He can’t help but flinch at the words, sinking his teeth into his lip so hard it almost breaks the skin, but he slips on the jester’s mask as he turns over with a smile that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. “Of course. Though, a lovely woman, Sila bid me farewell should her fiance return home when the tavern down the way closed. Wouldn’t want to be caught with my pants down, after all!” he chirps and winks, though the words feel oily and wrong on his tongue. A lie that he hopes Geralt won’t care to scent it on him. 

Geralt grunts and goes back to his mending. “One day that’s going to bite you in the ass, bard. You should try sticking your sausage in a pantry that doesn’t belong to someone else.” 

Jaskier makes a show of scoffing and waving his hand, then turns over and curls in on himself. _It already has, Geralt. It already has._

\--

The mountain is an unmitigated disaster, one that Jaskier won’t soon forget. Watching Geralt trail after Yennefer on this ridiculous mission like a puppy is downright sickening, coming to a head when he sees him disappear into her stupid magical tent. He tries that night to play loud enough to drown them out, but it’s no use. The others try to rib and get him to join in their banter, but his heart isn’t in it. His heart has been ripped out of his chest and thrown down into the dirt, probably next to the body of the ridiculous Sir Eyck. Eventually, he gives in and lets them goad him into trying some of their dwarven spirits. It’s enough to knock him flat on his ass and he sleeps without hearing any more of the ruckus that’s coming from the tent. It makes him forget about the silent rejection when he put his heart out on the line, silently begging Geralt to come away with him to the coast to get a respite from the maddening whirlwind they found themselves in.

Which is why he sleeps late. Which is why he’s left behind. Which is why tries to comfort a witcher who bares his teeth and snarls the words that make the last bit of Jaskier’s heart shrivel up and rot in his chest. 

“See you around, Geralt.” 

He hears the hollowness of his own voice ring out through the words, because he knows they aren’t true. His feet will carry him far away from here, from the man that he’s spent the last twenty years loving even though he knew he would never be his. Geralt belonged to someone else, and Jaskier has enough red in his ledger to know that he would never deserve him. 

It’s funny, he thinks as he trudges down the mountain alone, that for all of the love he’s squandered over the years, it seems fitting that his own would get thrown back in his face like a punch. 

\--

Life moves on. Jaskier loses track of the seasons that go by as he goes about his life. He feels Geralt’s loss acutely, like he imagines what it would feel like to have a limb torn away. He makes a point of ignoring any mentions of witchers and their Child of Surprise, pays no mind to whispers he hears about mages and sorceresses waging battles against Nilfgaard. Jaskier has gotten very good at pretending that the world outside Oxenfurt doesn’t exist, even toys with the idea of going home and assuming his position as Viscount of Lettenhove. He could marry some noblewoman and produce an heir or two, live the life that he has been expected to since he was born.

It’s not like there’s anything else waiting for him, after all.

Eventually, his heart begins to heal itself, scabbed over and sutured up haphazardly with the other loves that Jaskier tries to bury himself in. His music, good wine, and the occasional argument with Valdo Marx over dinner in the pub down the street are enough that he can pretend that he’s not still yearning for something he’ll never have. He takes a lover when the mood strikes or the wine has been exceptionally strong that evening, but he keeps his heart encased in a steel box, locked tight and made to never see the light of day again. 

He teaches at the university, which gives him the excuse to not have to perform the songs he sang when he was with Geralt. Lecturing on them gives him distance and he can pretend they belong to someone else, that Jaskier the Bard has been lost to time and only Julian Pankratz remains. 

It’s a good life, as good as it can be when he feels constantly like there’s something missing. Jaskier is good at adapting, he had to learn how to be on his travels with and without Geralt through the years, after all. He’s learned that he can be content.

Of course, life isn’t always so kind and Destiny does love to meddle when one least expects it.

Jaskier is packing his satchel, thinking about the compositions he has to read over that evening, when one of his students knocks on his office door. “Professor Pankratz? There’s… there’s someone here to see you?” the young lady says with the barest of a quiver in her voice. 

Thinking that it’s probably one of his colleagues or maybe someone with a question, he waves his hand and continues what he’s doing. “Fine, let them in. I swear, Valdo, if you’re bothering me because--”

“Jaskier.” 

He knows that voice. He hasn’t heard it in a long while, but he’d know it anywhere. How can one forget a sound that is imprinted on their very bones, settled into the deepest parts of their heart? Jaskier doesn’t want to look up, doesn’t want to make eye contact with the person that the voice belongs to. He’s not sure he can handle looking _him_ in the eyes anymore. “Oh. Well, Geralt of Rivia, what a surprise. What brings you to my humble office, hmm?” _Don’t look up, don’t look up._ His heart is thudding painfully hard against his ribcage and he’s almost afraid it’ll break out of the box he’s kept it in since the mountain. 

“I… came to see you.” 

_That_ makes him jerk his head up. Geralt is standing there, shifting from foot to foot like he’s considering whether or not to bolt from the room. He looks almost the same since the last time they parted ways, though if Jaskier looks hard enough, he would almost say Geralt’s face looks softer, more open. 

_Don’t give yourself hope like that. You know it’s not for you._ “Why?” is all Jaskier can think to say, dumbfounded as he is. He wracks his brain and can’t think of a single reason why Geralt would be here looking for him. 

Geralt shifts again, his face pinching. “I owe you an apology. I know it’s taken… longer than it should have done, but with the war and Ciri…” he trails off, and Jaskier watches him swallow, and the entire world feels off-center, like Jaskier’s going to fall off the edge and he’s not sure where he’ll land. “Anyway, I came to tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the things I said that day, that I let them fester for too long and didn’t come find you. I shouldn’t have let you walk off that mountain alone and it shouldn’t have taken me this long to tell you that I’m sorry. Yennefer and Ciri have both reminded me many times since then that I should use my words, especially when they matter.” 

The spark that had been building inside of him at the apology dies as soon as Geralt mentions Yennefer. Of course he’s been with her. Of course he and Yennefer and Ciri have become something that he’ll never be a part of. Geralt doesn’t mean to rub it in his face, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a reminder of everything he’ll never have with Geralt. 

Still, he forces a smile that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, good of them to remind you of that. I accept your apology. It was good to see you, Geralt, but I must be on my way.” The words taste like ash and his stomach feels like a lead weight. He has to leave, he has to get out of here and go somewhere that he can cry and mourn all over again. 

Jaskier steps to the side and tries to make a dash out of the room, but Geralt catches his wrist in a gentle grip. More than that, it’s the softly spoken, “Jaskier, please?” that makes him stop. Even after so long, after everything, a request from Geralt still has so much power over him. Weak and wanting, indeed. 

He sighs. “I accepted your apology. You don’t need to say anything else. I’m sure you have other things to be doing.” _She’s probably waiting for you. I can’t breathe with you here._

“But I do, Jaskier. Please, let me just speak and then I’ll leave, if that’s what you want. I’ll walk out of here and I’ll never trouble you again,” Geralt says softly, his gloved thumb caressing the thin skin of Jaskier’s wrist. It takes every ounce of willpower to not jerk his hand away from the touch that’s threatening to break him into a million pieces again. Geralt must take his silence as acquiescence, and after taking a deep breath, he starts again. “Jaskier, I… it’s… it’s you. It’s always been you.” 

“What?” That’s all he can make himself say, his head and heart reeling by the mere _implications_ of what that could mean. Surely Geralt can’t mean what he thinks he means? He clears his throat, hopes it covers up the way he’s trying to speak around the lump in his throat. “I don’t understand.” 

Geralt shifts again, using his grip on Jaskier’s wrist to pull him closer. The hold is loose enough that Jaskier could break it should he desire, but he can’t make his body cooperate. “Jaskier, all this time… I’m sorry it took me so long to realize how much I… needed you. Loved you. We never… because I thought you didn't want that. I didn’t want to tie you down or take away your freedom. And then, Yennefer and the wish… and she’s not… we don’t love each other like that. She’ll always be a part of me, but not… not like you are.” 

Jaskier’s mind is blank, after a moment it provides him with a joke about that probably being the most words he’s ever heard Geralt speak at once, but he can’t even bring himself to speak. Instead, a hysterical laugh threatens to bubble out from between his lips and for once, he lets it. Geralt stares at him like he’s grown a second head but it only makes him laugh harder. 

A good few minutes pass before Jaskier can get himself back under control, but finally he manages to say, “It was a distraction. You are the only one I ever wanted to keep, and then, it seemed like I’d never get the chance,” a few more errant giggles burst free, before what he’s about to admit truly sinks in, leaving him feeling scooped out, hollow, as he stares into Geralt’s eyes. “Then the mountain and… well, you never came back. So I figured that I was right. I spent years breaking hearts and playing at love, but you? You are the one real thing I wanted and I was sure I was never going to have it.” He’s still not, but he doesn’t dare utter those words aloud, lest he break the moment between them. He doesn’t want to shatter it and find that this is some kind of fever dream, that he’s imagined this after one too many bottles of wine. 

Geralt tugs him again, pressing the lines of their bodies together. Up close, Jaskier can smell the sweat and horse scent he’s grown to love over the years, feel the body he’s yearned to have against his for so long. “You do, if you want it. I’m yours, Jaskier. And I want you to be mine.” 

“I always have been, darling,” he says, and whatever else he’d been planning to say is swallowed by Geralt’s kiss. It’s everything and nothing all at once, Jaskier feeling like he could sprout wings and fly. 

He knows things aren’t fixed. They aren’t perfect, and it’ll take more time and words to build the bridge back between them. Geralt isn’t the only one who has things to answer for, as hard as that is to admit. But for now, he lets himself sink into the kiss, melt into the arms of the man he’s loved _for so long._

For the moment, everything is perfect. 

-END- 


End file.
